Explosions Kill at Least 2 in Restive Region of China

BEIJING — A series of explosions in the Xinjiang region of northwest China has killed at least two people and caused an unknown number of injuries, state news media reported Monday.

The blasts, which occurred Sunday, were the latest outbreak of violence to hit Xinjiang despite increasingly tight security. The government-run Tianshan news portal reported three separate explosions in Luntai County, southwest of the regional capital, Urumqi, but the website provided little detail.

The explosions occurred on the same day that 17 officials in southern Xinjiang were punished for failing to prevent a series of attacks in July that left almost 100 people dead, including the imam of the largest mosque in China.

The authorities have blamed Islamic separatists for a surge of ethnic unrest in Xinjiang, a vast borderland that is home to the Uighurs, a Sunni Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority that has long bridled against Beijing’s rule. Over the past year, hundreds of Uighurs have been detained, gunned down or sentenced to death for their roles in what the state news media have called “violent terror attacks.” Scores of Han, China’s ethnic majority, have also been killed by Uighur assailants.

Exiled Uighur activists and international human rights groups, however, frequently dispute the government’s description of the violence, saying that in many of the clashes, security forces opened fire on demonstrators who were protesting increasingly intrusive policies aimed at restricting religious practices and assimilating Uighurs.

Last week, Ilham Tohti, a Uighur academic who has criticized such policies, was put on trial for separatism. A verdict is expected on Tuesday.

In its brief report, Tianshan said that the explosions took place about 5 p.m. on Sunday in Luntai County, about 200 miles from Urumqi. “The injured have been taken to the hospital and social order has resumed,” the report said.

Reached by telephone, a Luntai shopkeeper said that one of the explosions, which he described as a bomb, shook Xinxin Pedestrian Street, a popular shopping thoroughfare. “The blast was really big,” said the shopkeeper, who refused to give his name for fear of angering the authorities.

A woman who answered the phone at the Luntai Public Security Bureau declined to discuss the explosions, calling the matter “classified information.”

Also on Sunday, the official Xinhua news agency reported that 17 officials and police officers had been punished for failing to prevent a bloody clash on July 28 that left 37 civilians dead and 94 injured in the southern city of Yarkand. Some of the same officials were also penalized for “being accountable” for the assassination two days later of a pro-government imam outside the Id Kah Mosque, a 15th century landmark in the center of the Silk Road city of Kashgar, more than 120 miles away.

In the July 28 clash in Yarkand, also known as Shache in Mandarin, security forces shot and killed 59 assailants and arrested 15 others, according to Xinhua, which described the violence as a “premeditated and carefully planned” terror attack.

However, Uighur exile groups, citing regional contacts, said that Chinese security forces had opened fire on unarmed Uighurs who were protesting measures that prohibited women from wearing veils and restrictions on the observance of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

After the violence, the Chinese authorities shut down the Internet in much of the region and disabled text messaging.

Two days later, Jume Tahir, 74, the imam of the Id Kah Mosque and a vocal supporter of the Communist Party’s ethnic policies, was stabbed to death by three men just after sunrise prayers, state media reported. The police shot to death two of the assailants and detained a third. The authorities later arrested an 18-year-old Uighur associate of the suspect and accused him of showing him videos with religious extremist content.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A5 of the New York edition with the headline: Explosions Kill at Least 2 in Restive Xinjiang Region of China. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe